1 . Parents and kids today dress alike, listen to the same music, and are friends. Is this a good thing? Sometimes, when Mr. Ballmer and his 16 - year - old daughter, Elizabeth, listen to rock music together and talk about interests both enjoy, such as pop culture, he remembers his more distant relationship with his parents when he was a teenager.
“I would never have said to my mom, ‘Hey, the new Weezer album is really great. How do you like it?” says Ballmer. “There was just a complete gap in taste.”
Music was not the only gulf. From clothing and hairstyles to activities and expectations, earlier generations of parents and children often appeared to move in separate orbits.
Today, the generation gap has not disappeared, but it is getting narrow in many families. Conversations on subjects such as sex and drugs would not have taken place a generation ago. Now they are comfortable and common. And parent - child activities, from shopping to sports, involve a feeling of trust and friendship that can continue into adulthood.
No wonder greeting cards today carry the message, “To my mother, my best friend.”
But family experts warm that the new equality can also result in less respect for parents. “There's still a lot of strictness and authority on the part of parents out there, but there is a change happening,” says Kerrie, a psychology professor at Lebanon Valley College. “In the middle of that change, there is a lot of confusion among parents.”
Family researchers offer a variety of reasons for these evolving roles and attitudes. They see the 1960s as a turning point. Great cultural changes led to more open communication and a more democratic process that encourages everyone to have a say.
“My parents were on the "before' side of that change, but today's parents, the 40 - year - olds, were on the ‘after’' side,” explains Mr. Ballmer. “It's not something easily accomplished by parents these days, because life is more difficult to understand or deal with, but sharing interests does make it more fun to be a parent now.”
1. The underlined word gulf in Para. 3 most probably means ________ .| A．interest | B．distance |
| C．difference | D．separation |
| A．Parents help their children develop interests in more activities |
| B．Parents put more trust in their children's abilities |
| C．Parents and children talk more about sex and drugs |
| D．Parents share more interests with their children. |
| A．follow the trend of the change | B．can set a limit to the change |
| C．fail to take the change seriously | D．have difficulty adjusting to the change |
| A．describe the difficulties today's parents have met with |
| B．discuss the development of the parent - child relationship |
| C．suggest the ways to handle the parent - child relationship |
| D．compare today’s parent - child relationship with that in the past |
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4 . According to Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier, reading aloud was a common practice in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Readers were “listeners attentive to a reading voice,” and “the text addressed to the ear as much as to the eye.” The significance of reading aloud continued well into the nineteenth century.
Using Charles Dickens’s nineteenth century as a point of departure, it would be useful to look at the familial and social uses of reading aloud and reflect on the functional change of the practice. Dickens habitually read his work to a domestic audience or friends. In his later years he also read to a broader public crowd Chapters of reading aloud also abound in Dickens’s own literary works. More importantly, he took into consideration the Victorian practice when composing his prose, so much so that his writing is meant to be heard, not only read on the page.
Performing a literary text orally in a Victorian family is well documented. Apart from promoting a pleasant family relationship, reading aloud was also a means of protecting young people from the danger of solitary (孤独的) reading. Reading aloud was a tool for parental guidance. By means of reading aloud, parents could also introduce literature to their children, and as such the practice combined leisure and more serious purposes such as religious cultivation in the youths. Within the family, it was commonplace for the father to read aloud Dickens read to his children: one of his surviving and often-reprinted photographs features him posing on a chair, reading to his two daughters.
Reading aloud in the nineteenth century was as much a class phenomenon as a family affair, which points to a widespread belief that Victorian readership primarily meant a middle-class readership, Those who fell outside this group tended to be overlooked by Victorian publishers。Despite this, Dickens, with his publishers Chapman and Hall, managed to distribute literary reading materials to people from different social classes by reducing the price of novels. This was also made possible with the technological and mechanical advances in printing and the spread of railway networks at the time.
Since the literacy level of this section of the population was still low before school attendance was made compulsory in 1870 by the Education Act, a considerable number of people from lower classes would listen to recitals of texts. Dickens’s readers, who were from such social backgrounds, might have heard Dickens in this manner. Several biographers of Dickens also draw attention to the fact that it was typical for his texts to be read aloud in Victorian England, and thus illiteracy was not an obstacle for reading Dickens. Reading was no longer a chiefly closeted form of entertainment practiced by the middle class at home.
A working-class home was in many ways not convenient for reading: there were too many distractions, the lighting was bad, and the home was also often half a workhouse. As a result, the Victorians from the non-middle classes tended to find relaxation outside the home such as in parks and squares, which were ideal places for the public to go while away their limited leisure time. Reading aloud, in particular public reading, to some extent blurred the distinctions between classes. The Victorian middle class defined its identity through differences with other classes. Dickens’s popularity among readers from the non-middle classes contributed to the creation of a new class of readers who read through listening.
Different readers of Dickens were not reading solitarily and “jealously,” to use Walter Benjamin’s term. Instead, they often enjoyed a more communal experience, an experience that is generally lacking in today’s world. Modem audiobooks can be considered a contemporary version of the practice. However, while the twentieth- and twentieth-first-century trend for individuals to listen to audiobooks keeps some eharacteristics of traditional reading aloud-such as “listeners attentive to a reading voice” and the ear being the focus—it is a far more solitary activity.
1. What does the author want to convey in Paragraph 1?| A．The significance of reading aloud. |
| B．The history of reading aloud. |
| C．The development of reading practice. |
| D．The roles of readers in reading practice. |
| A．He started to write for a broader public crowd. |
| B．He included more readable contents in his novels. |
| C．Scenes of reading aloud became common in his works. |
| D．His works were intended to be both heard and read. |
| A．2. | B．3. |
| C．4. | D．5. |
| A．Trafalgar Square. | B．His/her own house. |
| C．Nearby bookstores | D．Working place. |
| A．Different classes started to appreciate and read literary works together. |
| B．People from lower social classes became accepted as middle-class. |
| C．A non-class society in which everyone could read started to form, |
| D．The differences between classes grew less significant than before. |
| A．New reading trends for individuals. |
| B．The harm of modem audiobooks. |
| C．The material for modem reading. |
| D．Reading aloud in contemporary societies. |
5 . The Marches were a happy family, Poverty, hard work, and even the fact that Father March was away with the Union armies could not down the spirits of Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy, and Marmee, as the March girls called their mother.
The March sisters tried to be good but had their share of faults. Pretty Meg was often displeased with the schoolchildren she taught; boyish Jo was easy to become angry; golden-haired schoolgirl Amy liked to show up; but Beth, who kept the house, was loving and gentle always.
The happy days passed and darkness came when a telegram arrived for Mrs. March. “Your husband is very ill,” it said, “come at once.” The girl tried to be brave when their mother left for the front. They waited and prayed. Little Beth got scarlet fever (猩红热) when she was taking care of the sick neighbor. She became very ill but began to recover by the time Marmee was back. When Father came home from the front and at that joyful Christmas dinner they were once more all together.
Three years later the March girls had grown into young womanhood. Meg became Mrs. Brooke, and after a few family troubles got used to her new state happily. Jo had found pleasure in her literary efforts. Amy had grown into a young lady with a talent for design and an even greater one for society. But Beth had never fully regained her health, and her family watched her with love and anxiety.
Amy was asked to go and stay in Europe with a relative of the Marches’. Jo went to New York and became successful in her writing and had the satisfaction of seeing her work published there. But at home the bitterest blow was yet to fall Beth had known for some time that she couldn’t live much longer to be with the family and in the spring time she died.
News came from Europe that Amy and Laurie, the grandson of a wealthy neighbor, had planned to be married soon. Now Jo became ever more successful in her writing and got married to Professor Bhaer and soon afterwards founded a school for boys.
And so the little women had grown up and lived happily with their children, enjoying the harvest of love and goodness that they had devoted all their lives to.
1. The members of the March family were Father March, Mrs. March and their .| A．five daughters | B．four daughters |
| C．son and four daughters | D．son and five daughters |
| A．The March Family | B．The March Parents |
| C．The March Girls | D．The March Relatives |
| A．more girls than boys | B．wealthy neighbors |
| C．both happiness and sadness | D．a lot of rich relatives |
6 . Do’s and Don’ts in Whale (鲸) Watching
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has developed guidelines for whale watching in Johnstone Strait, where killer whales are found on a daily basis each summer. It is strongly recommended that vessel (船只) operators follow these guidelines for all kinds of whales.
• Approach whales from the side, not from the front or the back.
• Approach no closer than 100 metres, then stop the boat but keep the engine on.
• Keep noise levels down — no horns, whistles or racing of engines.
• Start your boat only after the whales are more than 100 metres from your vessel
• Leave the area slowly, gradually moving faster when you are more than 300 metres from the whales.
• Approach and leave slowly, avoiding sudden changes in speed or direction.
• Avoid disturbing groups of resting whales.
• Keep at low speeds and remain in the same direction if traveling side by side with whales.
• When whales are traveling close to shore, avoid crowding them near the shore or coming between the whales and the shore.
• Limit the time spent with any group of whales to less than 30 minutes at a time when within 100 to 200 metres of whales.
• If there is more than one vessel at the same observation spot, be sure to avoid any boat position that would result in surrounding the whales.
• Work together by communicating with other vessels, and make sure that all operators are aware of the whale watching guidelines.
1. For whom is this text written?| A．Tour guides. | B．Government officials. |
| C．Whale watchers. | D．Vessel operators. |
| A．move close to the beach | B．increase speed gradually |
| C．keep its engine running slowly | D．remain at the back of the whales |
7 . If the law punished addiction, we would all be in prison because we are addicted to our phones.
We’re hopelessly
My iphone is the last thing I look at when I go to bed and the first thing I look at when I
But the comment on this enormous
I simply do not
| A．distracted | B．surprised | C．frightened | D．punished |
| A．lost | B．occupied | C．vacant | D．awkward |
| A．commonly | B．constantly | C．usually | D．ordinarily |
| A．get home | B．have dinner | C．wake up | D．go out |
| A．reference | B．confidence | C．appearance | D．absence |
| A．healthy | B．remaining | C．artificial | D．missing |
| A．shift | B．Interest | C．challenge | D．consequence |
| A．changeable | B．negative | C．consistent | D．inspiring |
| A．rebuild | B．review | C．forget | D．forgive |
| A．prevents | B．keeps | C．suggests | D．finds |
| A．benefited | B．balanced | C．improved | D．suffered |
| A．happiness | B．discipline | C．attention | D．freedom |
| A．after | B．without | C．by | D．upon |
| A．request | B．exchange | C．preparation | D．search |
| A．have | B．know | C．buy | D．refuse |
| A．consideration | B．anxiety | C．demand | D．eagerness |
| A．time | B．chance | C．energy | D．effort |
| A．stronger | B．smarter | C．greater | D．closer |
| A．Therefore | B．However | C．Moreover | D．Meanwhile |
| A．publish | B．share | C．ignore | D．delete |
| A．to persuade | B．persuading |
| C．being persuaded | D．be persuaded |
| A．in want of | B．in praise of |
| C．in honor of | D．in place of |
| A．seats a professor | B．a professor seats |
| C．sits a professor | D．a professor sits |
